Ski In Control is the name of my new book at last published through and available from Amazon, or directly from me. Paperback £12.95 postage paid, or Kindle Edition £8.99

Tom Stiansen, World Slalom Champion says “This is a great book specially for recreational skiers. It’s a good tool for them”.

Front cover of Bob’s new booki

Ski In Control has helped the very large percentage of the hundreds of skiers I have coached to develop real confidence. They had all given up on ski schools very early on in their skiing experience because it got them nowhere.

I wrote Ski In Control specifically for recreational skiers – folk who have largely got fed up with ski schools. In it I explain why that happens. I show you why once you can “sort of” do it ski schools generally inhibit your progress. Folk then tend to blame themselves for not getting better, when in fact they are not the reason. In truth virtually everybody has the capacity to become an expert skier. That applies irrespective of your age, your gender, or your experience.

Don’t give up. There’s no need to. You genuinely have the potential.

Two folk recently wrote to me to say “If it hadn’t been for you Bob I would have given up”. There’s no need to give up or despair, read on …

Skiing technique: mistake #2: Clumsy joint flexing.

Perhaps correct for her exercise but terrible for skiing!

Skiing technique can be practiced at home in your bedroom. I want to return here to my admonition in “Mistakes #1” on posture, find it here. If you have not already read it, I recommend reading that first. Do the simple practices and then come back to this.

This Skiing technique issue of being able to both flex and extend your ankle, knee and hip joints – especially your ankle – is not a peripheral matter. This is absolutely fundamental to your development of skilful skiing. You need to develop skill in this area for your skiing to really give you satisfaction.

Skiing technique : mistake #1: Standing too upright.

Skiing is dynamical in nature. Constantly moving. It is not a series of individual, and separated events but a continual stream of them. More akin to a moving stream than a line of individually separated stones.

The oft-promoted, and oft-accepted idea of being “in balance” is completely wrong. There is never time to be “in” balance; we would have to come to a stop in order to be able to do that. As John Shedden pointed out to me once, if you stand a brick on its end, on a flat level surface, it will be in balance. We cannot ski like that.

Skiing technique requires instead, for our balanc-ing to be of a ‘fuzzy’ nature. So long as we are moving, we will not ever be “in” balance, we will instead be constantly moving towards that: constantly making (often unconscious) movements adjusting to changing circumstances. This is one of the reasons that skiing is difficult. There is much you can do to change this, even while you are at home. Continue reading →

Ski Training and how you can use your bedroom full-length mirror to enhance your skiing.

Do just three a week of my ten-minute sessions with your full length mirror and you’ll transform your skiing next season

Practice does not make perfect. Not automatically anyway: it might do but more than likely won’t. What practice does is to make permanent, no matter what you practice or how you practice it. So it can do more harm than good if you are not careful. As John Shedden observed, “Humans get good at what they do”. So be careful what you do.

Ski learning may not at first seem closely related to Roman philosophy. The same is not true in reverse because philosophy is a part of everything in life. Seneca had some very powerful and useful things to say about ski learning. Take them to heart and you will be happier. Continue reading →

To improve your ski learning keep taking the tablets: they don’t work if you don’t take them.

To improve your ski learning– or indeed to improve skill with any technique or group of techniques, somewhat resembles looking after your health.

Your doctor diagnoses some ailment or other. Next she prescribes a treatment that you need to keep applying. She gives you the medication, and off you go.

You are keen to make things better, so you apply the medication regime, and sure enough things begin to improve. They continue to improve right up to the point where you are no longer aware of the symptoms that drove you to her in the first place. So it is with your skiing skill. Continue reading →

Ordinary people do amazing things when they don’t know they can’t. I looked up “open-mindedness” in the Thesaurus and it came up with Acceptance, Interest, Observance, Receptiveness and Understanding. All of which, it seems to me, are pretty handy when you want to develop more skilful skiing. More of which, below the fold here – Continue reading →

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